Miss Starke was one of those ladies who pass their lives in the
direst of all civil strife--war with their servants. She looked upon
the members of that class as the unrelenting and sleepless enemies
of the unfortunate householders condemned to employ them. She
thought they ate and drank to their villanous utmost, in order to
ruin their benefactors--that they lived in one constant conspiracy
with one another and the tradesmen, the object of which was to
cheat and pilfer. Miss Starke was a miserable woman. As she had no
relations or friends who cared enough for her to share her solitary
struggle against her domestic foes; and her income, though easy,
was an annuity that died with herself, thereby reducing various
nephews, nieces, or cousins, to the strict bounds of a natural
affection--that did not exist; and as she felt the want of some
friendly face amidst this world of distrust and hate, so she had
tried the resource of venal companions. But the venal companions
had never staid long--either they disliked Miss Starke, or Miss
Starke disliked them. Therefore the poor woman had resolved upon
bringing up some little girl whose heart, as she said to herself,
would be fresh and uncorrupted, and from whom she might expect
gratitude. She had been contented, on the whole, with Helen, and
had meant to keep that child in her house as long as she (Miss
Starke) remained upon the earth--perhaps some thirty years longer;
and then, having carefully secluded her from marriage, and other
friendship, to leave her nothing but the regret of having lost so
kind a benefactress. Agreeably with this notion, and in order to
secure the affections of the child, Miss Starke had relaxed the
frigid austerity natural to her manner and mode of thought, and been
kind to Helen in an iron way. She had neither slapped nor pinched
her, neither had she starved. She had allowed her to see Leonard,
according to the agreement made with Dr Morgan, and had laid out
tenpence on cakes, besides contributing fruit from her garden for
the first interview--a hospitality she did not think it fit to renew
on subsequent occasions. In return for this, she conceived she had
purchased the right to Helen bodily and spiritually, and nothing
could exceed her indignation when she rose one morning and found the
child had gone. As it never had occurred to her to ask Leonard's
address, though she suspected Helen had gone to him, she was at a
loss what to do, and remained for twenty-four hours in a state of
inane depression. But then she began to miss the child so much that
her energies woke, and she persuaded herself that she was actuated
by the purest benevolence in trying to reclaim this poor creature
from the world into which Helen had thus rashly plunged.
Accordingly, she put an advertisement into the _Times_, to the
following effect, liberally imitated from one by which, in former
years, she had recovered a favourite Blenheim.
TWO GUINEAS REWARD.
Strayed, from Ivy Cottage, Highgate, a Little Girl, answers to
the name of Helen; with blue eyes and brown hair; white muslin
frock, and straw hat with blue ribbons. Whoever will bring the
same to Ivy Cottage, shall receive the above Reward.
_N.B._--Nothing more will be offered.
Now, it so happened that Mrs Smedley had put an advertisement in
the _Times_ on her own account, relative to a niece of hers who
was coming from the country, and for whom she desired to find
a situation. So, contrary to her usual habit, she sent for the
newspaper, and, close by her own advertisement, she saw Miss
Starke's.
It was impossible that she could mistake the description of Helen;
and, as this advertisement caught her eye the very day after the
whole house had been disturbed and scandalised by Burley's noisy
visit, and on which she had resolved to get rid of a lodger who
received such visitors, the goodhearted woman was delighted to think
that she could restore Helen to some safe home. While thus thinking,
Helen herself entered the kitchen where Mrs Smedley sate, and the
landlady had the imprudence to point out the advertisement, and
talk, as she called it, "seriously" to the little girl.
Helen in vain and with tears entreated her to take no step in reply
to the advertisement. Mrs Smedley felt it was an affair of duty,
and was obdurate, and shortly afterwards put on her bonnet and
left the house. Helen conjectured that she was on her way to Miss
Starke's, and her whole soul was bent on flight. Leonard had gone
to the office of the _Beehive_ with his MSS.; but she packed up all
their joint effects, and, just as she had done so, he returned. She
communicated the news of the advertisement, and said she should be
so miserable if compelled to go back to Miss Starke's, and implored
him so pathetically to save her from such sorrow that he at once
assented to her proposal of flight. Luckily, little was owing to the
landlady--that little was left with the maid-servant; and, profiting
by Mrs Smedley's absence, they escaped without scene or conflict.
Their effects were taken by Leonard to a stand of hackney vehicles,
and then left at a coach-office, while they went in search of
lodgings. It was wise to choose an entirely new and remote district;
and before night they were settled in an attic in Lambeth.